Page 42 of From Notting Hill with Love…Actually (Actually #1)

“I think it looks lovely, Scarlett. It’s so romantic to have a dress like that these days.

” She stood up and came over to me. “It’s like the sort of wedding dress you imagine you’re going to have as a little girl.

” She looked wistful. “Big tulle net skirts, a beautiful bodice encrusted with pearls, maybe even a long train carried by six pretty bridesmaids…”

I could tell Ursula had thought a lot about this.

“I’ve got the white tulle skirts, Ursula,” I said, swishing them about a little. “And the bodice is embroidered—with tiny white beads though, not pearls. But I’m afraid I have to draw the line at the six bridesmaids and the long train. I’m just having Maddie.”

Ursula shook her head. “I’m sorry, I got a little carried away there for a moment. Sean always said I was too romantic for my own good.”

“What do you think?” Oscar asked, looking over his shoulder at Cruella.

She slowly lifted her head from her notes and her electronic organizer.

“It’s quite suitable,” she said, looking at me over the top of her rimless spectacles.

“Glad you approve!” Oscar turned back to us, sticking out his tongue and pretending to slit his throat with his finger.

“She doesn’t have a choice,” I whispered, as we all leaned in toward each other in a conspiratorial huddle. “This is the only thing I’m allowed; she can’t quibble about. It was part of the deal in me allowing David’s parents to hire her.”

“However,” we heard her say, “I do have an issue with your choice of bridesmaid’s gown. Perhaps we could take a look at it when you’ve finished here. It’s hanging in the next room.”

I rolled my eyes. We all stood up straight again from our huddle.

“Maybe I can help?” Oscar said, winking at me.

He leaped up and bounded over to Cruella.

“I run my own very successful fashion chain based in Kensington. I have more experience in gown dilemmas than you’ve had…

” He paused as he looked at Cruella’s bony frame.

“Than you’ve had carb-free meals, darling! ”

I watched as he guided Cruella in the direction of the exit.

Ursula smiled. “It really is a princess of a dress, Scarlett,” she said, gently stroking some of the fabric. “You’ll have a happy ending when you wear this dress, that’s for sure.”

I looked at myself in the mirror again.

“You said before that Sean said you were too romantic, Ursula. Isn’t he ever, then?”

Ursula turned and faced the mirror too.

“Why do you ask?”

“It’s just when I was at his house once I saw all these books on his shelf.”

“Sean’s always been a big reader.”

“Yes, I know, but among them were authors such as Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte; there was even a book called Love Letters of Great Men . Those aren’t the sort of books read by someone who’s un romantic, are they?”

“Oh, that’s where it went,” Ursula said, rolling her eyes. “That book is mine. I bought it because it was in the Sex and the City movie—but of course you probably knew that.”

I nodded.

“I must have left it at Sean’s when I was waiting in for a delivery for him once. I wondered where it had gone.” She laughed. “I can’t imagine Sean reading that, can you? It’s not really his scene.”

I tried not to let the disappointment show on my face .

So that explained it. Sean wasn’t romantic at all, and he never would be.

Ursula must have sensed something. “It’s not entirely Sean’s fault he’s the way he is,” she said, turning toward me. She glanced toward the door where Oscar and Cruella had just exited, and she lowered her voice. “A few years ago there were some…problems between Sean and Oscar’s sister, Jennifer.”

“Yes, I know, Sean told me.”

“He did?” Ursula said, sounding surprised.

“Yes, when we were in Glasgow. Oh, and he mentioned it when we were in Paris too.”

“I see.” Ursula looked thoughtful. “Anyway. That experience knocked Sean pretty badly at the time. He’s never been quite the same since.”

I was about to ask how when Oscar and Cruella returned.

I stared at Cruella. She looked different.

What was it about her, had she changed her clothes?

No, she was actually smiling for once.

“All sorted,” Oscar sang as he twirled around in the center of the room. “Just ask Uncle Oscar to wave his magical wand and all shall come good!”

I wondered if Oscar might like to wave that wand over some other areas of my life that were needing a sprinkle of magic right now.

***

When the wedding dress fitting was over Oscar and Ursula suggested we go on somewhere else .

“That’s why we originally dropped by earlier, to invite you out for the evening, isn’t it, Ursula?” Oscar said as he skipped down the street carrying Delilah (did she ever walk? I wondered), admiring his reflection in the shop windows he passed.

Ursula nodded. “We thought we’d take a trip to the cinema tonight—you’d be up for that, Scarlett, wouldn’t you?”

It was a rare occasion I wasn’t, and they knew it. “There is a new Hugh Grant movie out I haven’t seen yet.”

“Oh, I love Hugh,” Ursula cried. “What do you say, Oscar? Do you fancy a bit of Hugh Grant tonight?”

“Darling,” Oscar said with a flourish. “I fancy a bit of Hugh every night.”

The Coronet in Notting Hill Gate had to be the most wonderful cinema I’d ever been in. The opulent red plush interiors edged with gilt took me back to the height of Hollywood glamour.

“Ah, I do love it here,” Oscar sighed, as we relaxed in our velvet-covered seats. “It’s so glam.”

The Coronet cinema, I discovered once we were inside, was originally a nineteenth-century theater, converted in modern times to a picture house. So, unusually, when we bought our tickets we had the choice of whether to sit in the stalls or the upper circle to watch the film.

We plumped for the upper circle, and now, while we sat there waiting for the adverts and trailers to begin, I felt as if I was going to watch a theater production rather than a movie.

“It’s lovely, isn’t it?” I said. “So different from our local multiplex back home.”

“I should have searched out some diving goggles to wear when I dropped Delilah back at the house and then you’d have felt even more at home,” Oscar said, holding his fingers over his eyes in two circles.

“Diving goggles? I don’t get…wait, is this the cinema from Notting Hill ?”

Ursula nodded. “Yep, I thought you’d have recognized it straight away!”

“I thought it looked familiar,” I said, taking a good look around me. “Well, we may not have any diving goggles to re-create that scene, but Hugh Grant is going to be joining us in a few minutes, so I guess that will have to do!”

The lights in the auditorium dimmed, and the curtains were pulled back to reveal the huge cinema screen.

Immediately I was plunged back into my comfort zone again.

A zone where someone else’s life was all I had to concern myself with for the next two hours, and my own, ever more complicated one, could temporarily be forgotten.

It was a good movie, as nearly all Hugh’s were. The only thing that could have made it better was if Sean had been sitting there next to me rather than Oscar.

You have to stop this, Scarlett , I told myself as the final credits rolled up the screen. You’ve made your choice, now you have to live with it.

“Shall we go for something to eat?” Ursula asked as we left the cinema. “There’s a lovely Indian restaurant just up the road from here. Oscar and I often go there when we’ve been to see a movie.”

“Yes, why not?” I said, thinking of the empty house waiting for me.

“That would be great. Hold on, let me just check how much money I’ve got left, I may have to stop at an ATM along the way.

” I felt for where my bag would usually hang but instead felt only my hip.

“My bag! Oh, I must have left it in the cinema—just wait here a minute. I’ll be right back. ”

I hurried back to where we’d been seated a few minutes ago—but there was no bag waiting for me when I got there.

I felt under the seat, then looked all around where we’d been sitting in case it had been kicked along the floor when everybody had been leaving, but there was still no sign of it.

“Excuse me?” I heard a voice calling from down below. I looked over the top of the balcony, and saw one of the usherettes holding up a bag—my bag. “Is this yours?” she asked.

“Yes,” I called out. “Yes it is! One minute, I’ll be right down.”

I rushed to the exit and then down the stairs.

“Thank you,” I called, as I hurried toward the woman. “I thought I’d lost it.”

“You’re lucky,” she said. “It’s a good bag too. Gucci, right?”

“It’s a fake, actually,” I admitted. As I approached her, I realized she was older than I’d thought.

“I did know, I can tell.”

“Can you really? How?” I’d thought it had been a pretty good copy when I’d bought it off eBay a couple of months ago.

“It’s all in the logo,” she said, pointing at the clasp on the front. She looked up at me as I arrived in front of her. “You see just here, it’s…” Her voice trailed off.

“What?” I asked. “What’s the difference?”

But she continued to stare at me. It was unnerving; she didn’t speak—she just stared. I knew I shouldn’t have bought a fake handbag off eBay. Knowing my luck she’d turn out to be some sort of part-time counterfeits officer, on the lookout for fake designer goods.

Her eyes dropped away from mine, and she swallowed. “Here—just take your bag,” she said in a low voice. A strand of black hair fell across her face.

I reached out and took my bag. As I did so my hand brushed against hers. What felt like a bolt of lightning shot up through my arm—and spread right through me like an enormous wave of emotion.

I looked closely at her again and in the dim light noticed that her eyes were an intense shade of green, just like mine. She stared helplessly back at me.

I glanced down at her badge; it stated that Rose would be pleased to help me today.

I opened my mouth to speak—but nothing would come out. It was like being in one of those awful nightmares where your body won’t do what you want it to. There were so many questions I suddenly wanted to ask this woman—but I couldn’t.

So instead, she asked me one.

“Scarlett, is that you?”

“Mum?”